Introductions

Entry posted by gearheadbsnist July 16, 2016

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Hi, I'm Jason, and I really like Battalions.

I mean, really like them.

For me, Battalions define Age of Sigmar -- more than the drastically simplified ruleset, more than the destruction of the Old World, and more than the radical reinvention of organized play. I was never a tournament player in 8th edition, I can't paint to save my life, and for the majority of the last decade I've been a broke grad student living on ramen and sleep deprivation. Sure, in good old WFB, you could make your army list lore-friendly...

If you wanted to lose every game you played.

Because guess what? Every game was a competitive game, because that's how the rules worked. There was no incentive outside of self-satisfaction for taking the narrative into account when you built your list. In Age of Sigmar, though, with the death of the Old World and the sudden freedom of army composition, Games Workshop gave us something special.

Battalions are narrative list-making made viable. They give you an actual reason to build an army that makes sense -- not just because it will win games (it still probably won't), but because it ties into the wider Warhammer Universe. I know, some people don't care about that, and for you there's matched play, and the tournament scene. For me though, the lore matters. The lore was something I could follow, when I couldn't afford miniatures and had no-one to play with, and if I'm going to spend my time and energy building, converting, painting, and collecting these pointless little plastic soldiers, I want to be a part of that.

Right then, enough rambling.

This blog is about battalions, and using them as the central structure around which to build an army list. That list might be for tournaments (but probably not). That list might be for open or narrative play (most likely), or it might be something that makes the loremaster in you smile. We'll talk about composition, we'll talk about tactics, and yes, we'll talk about points.

Ready to get started? Next time, we're going to be making a quick hop to July of 2015, and the pair of Warscrolls that started this whole mess for me...